At least, that’s what meteorologists say for data-collecting purposes. They consider March,
April and May to be spring, and who am I to argue?

Unfortunately, March is coming in like a lion.

The vernal equinox — the actual beginning of calendar spring — will be at 12:57 p.m. on March
20.

The March moon will be full on the 16th, and even its name sounds a bit springy. It’s called the
worm moon.

The current cold snap might not be what we want, but it will be temporary.

During a recent walk, I spotted what is always the first wildflower to bloom in the new year — a
skunk cabbage. Even though it isn’t dazzling, it looked beautiful to me. It was something
growing.

Skunk-cabbage plants create their own heat and can bloom even in the snow. They smell like
rotting carrion, which attracts the first insects that come along and pollinate it.

There are other good signs now, as illustrated by a reader’s email. On Feb. 20, she wrote: “This
morning as I filled the birdfeeder and spread some corn and peanuts on the ground underneath, a
red-winged blackbird stopped by.” She said it was her first sighting of that bird in the new year.
It was migrating northward.

“I have heard the birds singing on some of the finer mornings here lately, and it was lovely,”
she wrote.

I have also been seeing a migrating bird that most of us would rather not see. Grackles travel
in large flocks and chase away other birds.

Jim McCormac wrote in his book
Birds of Ohio: “A true sign of spring, returning grackle flocks appear with the first
spring thaw.” I saw my first grackle of the year last Sunday.

It is easy to notice the increasing daylight, but March is far from predictable and can be
contrary. Hal Borland wrote in his book
Twelve Moons of the Year: “With February out of the way, we want it to be May or April;
and it isn’t either of them. It is temperamental March, a time of change. We have to wade through
the mud of March to get from February to April. … But March is neither sinister nor mad. It is old
endings and new beginnings.”

With snow and another polar vortex bearing down on us, I was reminded of a poem my wife used to
teach her second-graders. The author is unknown.